Reflection
by hotaryu
Summary: All he wants to do is to stay alive. Possible spoilers from the manga.


**Title:** Reflection

**Fandom:** Shingeki No Kyojin

**Summary:** All he wants is to stay alive. Includes spoilers.

In the streets, there is a monster that howls. Under the light of day, when people walk in the street, this monster is visible. He escapes the eyes of people, he prowls through the crowd, among the noisy, the ugly, the beautiful and the damned. This wolf doesn't howl literally – he just prowls around, looking, scavenging, for the world is not good to him, a boy who only knows how to survive. This is the life he's known – waking up early, sleeping outside, scavenging, breathing the dirt and the smell of poverty. This is the world, he learns, early, because he is a child, and it is the first thing he learns. When there are young nobles who learn their ABC's, what does this monster learn?

Safety is no issue. He is on his own, as a child. Imagine being a child in a city of immorality. The stink of the stench of piss is inescapable. When he goes around the outskirts, the red light district, no one has to tell him about the laughter of men, the smell of alcohol dancing in their breath, and the moaning of female voices from the taverns in the red light district. The females that go out of the taverns are whores. He can smell their scent, that stench of sin, and lust and sex is a sore to the child's nose. It is no place for a child – but then, he lives in this world, where he can go around in the dark in the red light district, beating up other children for food, scavenging for what can be done to ensure survival.

When he sleeps, he curls up against the ground, wrapping himself in clothes he stole, anything to keep the dirt from the ground dusting on his stolen clothes. Then he closes his eyes – and for a while, his mind goes into circles, letting a bit of his focus lower down, for this is sleep, this is not a true escape from the nightmare that awaits him when his eyes open and he thinks that here goes another day where he has to go on the run, his feet taking him far and far and away from the guards that spy him stealing food for survival, his teeth sharp and his eyes bloodshot, his feet never betraying him while the road runs long and red. His eyelids flutter and then, there is darkness.

Levi _dreams_ often, this child. He dreams of running in a large castle, with rooms, where there are no windows. It feels so real, this dream. The floor is marble, and cold – and the darkness unwinds, and there are twists and turns to this building, whatever, wherever he is, in this dream. He dreams once of wings that fly so high and so fast that the colors blur, but that intense splash of color never leaves his brain – green and white, and wings.

His skin is dirty most of the time – and it irritates the boy to no end. Once a week, though, Kenny Ackerman is merciful enough to let the boy take a bath, and come out squeaky clean. In inns, when there are rare times that Kenny lets the boy go with him on his trips, once in a while, the boy can't help but admire how clinical the pillows in beds in inns are arranged. He likes it when he takes a bath in a tub of hot water, and how his skin emerges from the water a pale baby pink, and his hair is combed, and the knowledge that once he gets out of the bath, his clothes will be clean and he will be safe and clean is oddly comforting.

"What did you dream about, Levi?" Kenny asks him in the morning.

"I dreamt I was running in a corridor. It never stopped. It just went on and on."

"Still the same, huh?"

"It never ends."

Kenny looks at him.

"I dreamt about green and white wings, flying into the light. I dreamt of a road that went on and on. There was darkness, then there was light. Light there was, but then darkness came. Darkness I became."

"Tell me, child, do you believe in dreams?" It was hard to tell if Kenny was being serious with him. He was always serious, his lips a thin line of urgency. His baritone was smooth, and could be hard when he willed it to be. Whenever he put on his white gloves, his face does not betray any emotion. A hard man, the boy thinks. Captain Ackerman is a hard man, weathered the losses of his trade, and he does not care for things.

"Why are you asking me?" It is a statement, not just a question.

Kenny Ackerman frowns.

"I want to know. Curiosity."

The boy pauses to think.

Does he believe them? They aren't tangible. What do dreams mean in a life like this? What do they matter when all he wants is a hot bed, a snuggly bath and a sense of stability to one day be assured he will be safe and sound? But he is a child, and the dreams… The dreams themselves aren't meant to be taken at face value, especially for him. He takes things the way they are, because he is a boy of the earth, not the air, he is a boy who knows and breathes the stench of the city's immorality and the darkness of the underground.

"The dreams don't make sense."

"Dreams really don't, child." For a moment, Kenny's eyes glow, but then, they dullen, too. "What else do you dream about?"

"Darkness. Running in circles. I dreamt in my sleep."

"Who doesn't –" He cuts himself off. "Go on."

"I dreamt of a throne. There was an old man. Dead he was, and slit was his throat. A golden crown lay at his feet, broken. I dreamt of a monster outside the Walls. All this, I dreamt and more."

"Do you think they matter?"

"No. I don't."

"Then what matters?"

"One day, I want a nice white blanket when I sleep. I want a cup of tea to make me feel warm in the cold. One day, I will own a cup and drink tea from it."

Kenny's eyes shine but in the darkness, it is hard to tell his emotion. No, the boy corrects himself; it's always been tricky to predict him.

Amusement?

"Tell me what matters, then, Kenny."

"Do you know what you are?"

"I'm an orphan."

"What else?"

"My mother… She was a wench."

The man knows better than to sugarcoat such things.

"Your mother was a whore, and I am the one taking care of you. You go with me on my trips. I teach you to stay alive. That's what you are –and that's what supposed to be what matters."

"Staying alive?"

"Yes. You should know this by now."

"Know what?"

"You should hear what they say about me. Do you have any idea of what the world is like? Do you know the kind of life we have?"

"It's hard."

That sums it up – at least.

"I have a piece of advice for you, my boy."

"What is it?"

"The word is cruel. To win, we must fight. If we die, we lose."

The boy knows.

"That's why we must stay alive," Kenny concludes.

"Stay alive."

Silence.

"Don't call me boy."

"Why?"

"I have a name, too."

"What is it?"

"Levi."

The name of a boy who dreamt. The name of a child. The name of a boy who will one day be a man.

"You know what they say about me?"

"What do you they say about you?"

"They say that I am a monster. They say I'm a murderer. I kill people. I murder them. I can kill them with my fingers, my hands. You're talking to a criminal."

"Don't you feel bad about it?"

"I don't care." His tone is callous. "Whatever needs to be done, must be done. If I should stay alive and I need to do this, I will do it. I need to live. I need to kill. And you should think the same. You're all I have."

Levi nods.

"I will teach you why and how."

"Then do it."

"Never forget that the world is cruel. It can be your enemy. It can betray you."

This is the monster.

He howls.

In a matter of years, the monster roams. He steals. He runs. He gets the job done, with the slickness of a smooth criminal. In the underground, they talk of him. The monster doesn't care; he needs to keep his heart breathing, pumping, while his hands crush the life out of humans. Like a reflection, did he ever say the words that he has enough to survive? Does he know how he howls in the dark? He doesn't; he doesn't mind that lonely ache for companionship, as he applies his lesson in his work. Poverty is his enemy, and the world is his enemy. He doesn't view it – he doesn't care, and might as well want to watch the world burn. He knows the world is cruel and that the dreams are still with him. They go with him.

All he wants to do is stay alive.


End file.
